Cutting edge
Bon Délire, Thanksgiving sushi & knife sharpening, best hotels for holiday guests, luxury investments, MORE
RESTAURANTS • First Person
Bistro remix
There’s much to discuss about French restaurants’ rise (Le Parc Bistrobar, Galinette, Verjus) and fall (Monsieur Benjamin, Petit Crenn) in San Francisco this year, but the cool new bistro that’s taken over the conversation is Bon Délire, which popped open on the waterfront last month.
Its founder, Kais Bouzidi, also owns Mediterranean Sens and Middle Eastern Barcha, two solid, downtown happy hour and lunch options. Both of those places reflect Bouzidi’s family roots (his dad was born in Tunisia), but this spot calls back to Bouzidi’s childhood in Paris, running around his family’s creperie and watching rap videos.
Executive chef Vernon Morales (Sens, Barcha) and chef de cuisine Te’Sean Glass (Angler, Saison) have assembled a menu that delivers on bistro classics. There are leeks vinaigrette as well as oeufs mayonnaise with baby shrimp tucked underneath and caviar dotted on top to start the show. The steak frites involve eight ounces of New York strip, slender fries, and sauce poivre. Comté cheese bubbles out of the croque madame, and you can make it rain by adding shaved truffles. For dessert, the charms of warm madeleines or custardy pain perdu are hard to resist.
Bon Délire took over its space from Charles Phan’s short-lived whiskey bar Hard Water, retaining its iconic horseshoe bar, where you can ease into the night with a Kir Royale or Boulevardier. The wine list swings from France to California, and sommelier Patrick Thillard (native of Toulouse, owner of the late Bask), can recommend an intriguing pet nat.
What Bouzidi believes will set Bon Délire apart from all these other bistros is the vibe. He built a DJ booth into a front corner, spinning his favorite hip hop, and installed a movie projector that beams Parisian scenes onto the back wall. On a recent Thursday night, the doors never stopped swinging. –Becky Duffett
→ Bon Délire (Embarcadero) • Pier 3, Ste 102 • Lunch 1130a-230p, happy hour 330-530p, dinner 5-930p daily • Reserve.
SF RESTAURANT LINKS: Union Square’s 116-year-old John’s Grill will serve first-ever Thanksgiving this year • Long-shuttered QBar reopens in the Castro • Tu David Phu’s wine bar GiGi’s opening on Divis this Friday • A glowing review of Oakland’s Bombera • Inside Silicon Valley’s private chef scene • The only wine you need this holiday season.
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Sponsor
Water & all that we love
Ryan and Arjan here, the co-founders of Jolie, a beauty wellness company focused on purifying the quality of one’s shower water for better skin and hair. We’re both fans and readers of FOUND, which is why we decided to sponsor this newsletter to reach like-minded folks like you.
As much as we love discussing water’s impact on skin and hair, we’re equally enamored by the connection of water to all else that we love in life — art, coffee, surfing, food, oysters, ceramics, and so much more. That’s why we created a fun video series, Water &, which looks at these topics through the lens of water. Some highlights:
We spent an early morning in Montauk with artist Joe Henry Baker who used the salty ocean water to paint with and wet his canvases, resulting in a crystallization in the painting as it dried.
We spent an evening with Esben Piper, the founder of the renowned Danish coffee company, La Cabra, at their Soho location in New York. Did you know that the parts per million of minerals in water (or the water’s “hardness”) made to brew La Cabra’s coffee is finely tuned to extract flavor while not making the coffee taste sour?
We joined designer Cynthia Rowley for a morning surf out east on Long Island, where the water is both a calming force for her and “balance” to her planned out, calendared work days.
We’ve always loved oysters, but we loved them even more once we started spending time with both the Billion Oyster Project and Montauk Pearl Oyster’s Mike Martinsen. Oysters clean the water by filtering water as they eat, removing ecosystem-destroying pollutants such as nitrogen. They also act as a natural storm barrier and help foster biodiversity. (The Billion Oyster Project, our non-profit of choice, is restoring the oyster reefs in New York’s harbors to clean the Hudson and East Rivers. Last we checked, 122 million oysters have been restored in New York’s harbor over the last 10 years.)
You can watch all of our Water & videos on our website here.
We worked with these partners because we think they are the best at what they do. If you are thinking about buying a Jolie, we encourage you to do so via the link below. We are picking five FOUND buyers to gift a year’s worth of La Cabra coffee to make at home.
The role of water is all around us. –Ryan Babenzien & Arjan Singh
→ Shop: The Jolie Filtered Showerhead (Jolie) • available in brushed gold, modern chrome, brushed steel, jet black, and vibrant red • $148.
CULTURE & LEISURE • Window Seat
Broadway Rave • Oasis (SoMa) • Fri @ 10p • GA, $23 per
Guide Dogs For The Blind Graduation Day • campus tour/’diploma’ ceremony • Guide Dogs For The Blind (San Rafael) • Sat @ 1215p • donation suggested
Fall Holiday Chocolate Salon and Festival • County Fair Building (Golden Gate Park) • Sun @ 11a • GA, $22 per
GOODS & SERVICES • FOUND Shop
Looking sharp
If you want them back in time for the holidays, the time to get your knives sharpened is now. It’s annoying to have to take a Thanksgiving turkey down with a dull blade, and absolutely unacceptable to treat a Christmas prime rib roast that way. At Bernal Cutlery, the knife pros do such a beautiful job you’ll kick yourself for waiting this long.
Like a top-shelf mechanic, they’ll offer you a loaner knife or two to keep you going until yours are back in commission. (It’s quite likely that these daily cutlery drivers are better than your own.)
While you’re there, take a swing through the main shop for a little holiday shopping. Since moving to this larger location in 2019, Bernal Cutlery has expanded the selection of glossy cookbooks, handcrafted ceramics, and pantry items, from big-ass beans to luxe olive oil. But nothing says happy holidays better than a gorgeous Japanese or Western chef’s knife. (They also opened a stall in the Ferry Building this fall, which doesn’t offer sharpening services but is perfect for grabbing last-minute holiday or host gifts.) –Becky Duffett
→ Shop: Bernal Cutlery (Mission) • 766 Valencia St • 11a–6p daily.
WORK • Luxury Report
Tick tock
Years ago, a friend argued that buying high-end bags, watches, and jewelry was a smart investment strategy, not careless consumption. And for a while, the luxury goods market seemed to have no bounds. The Hermes Birkin handbags purchased for $2000 in 1984 jumped as high as $100,000. (The origin story helped. Actress Jane Birkin pitched the idea for the iconic bag to Hermes CEO Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight from Paris to London.)
Maybe my friend was right.
The market got a boost when specialized reseller The RealReal got traction. Founded by Julie Wainwright, the company extended the life cycle of luxury goods and built a circular economy around pricey clothes and accessories.
It’s not the stock exchange or real estate’s MLS, but could it become an efficient marketplace? Probably not. As demand slows and prices slide, luxury goods seem more like planes and boats, less like houses and publicly traded equities. In the end, maybe The RealReal didn’t do anything more than authenticate consigned luxury items.
Today, the market is still sloppy and inefficient, reliant on fickle brand-obsessed consumption, which favors almost-couture. Long-term value is hard to sustain. Of course, select items — treasures — will appreciate, but the insanity bubble has burst. For proof, I don’t have to look any further than my wrist, which displays my first Cartier watch, an exquisite reflection of poor market timing. –Brad Inman
SF WORK AND PLAY LINKS: At long last, Muni launches merch store • Amazon-owned robotaxis hit SF streets • $30 million overhaul of Piers 31-33 moves forward • SF Sketchfest lineup includes Bill Murray, Kathyrn Hahn, JB Smoove • Gavin Newsom snags $9.1M Kentfield home • Pet sick days are the new employee-perk battleground.
RESTAURANTS • FOUND Table
Cold case
The Backstory: Thanks to increasing online buzz since its opening this spring, tiny sushi takeout operation Aji Kiji has had no shortage of business. Open for just a few hours Tuesday to Saturday, the Fillmore spot serves up modest-sized but gorgeous boxes of nigiri, maki, and sashimi featuring high-quality freshly butchered fish and vinegar-seasoned rice.
When the business launched, chef Jinwoong Lim (who also owns popular next-door Korean “tapas” spot Bansang) prepared all the sushi boxes himself, which meant the limited number of platters sold out soon after open. He’s since brought in a helping hand, but demand still exceeds supply. Expect an empty case well before Lim heads back to the Bansang kitchen in the afternoon.
The Experience: The “Omakase” box ($54 per) is a chef’s selection of 10 pieces of nigiri — typically including a piece of aji (horse mackerel), as well as salmon, amberjack, and a couple of cuts of tuna (bluefin, chutoro and/or ultra-fatty otoro). It also comes with some tsukemono (Japanese pickles), and a tiny, fish-shaped squeeze bottle of house-blended soy sauce. All the fish is individually seasoned and may get a kiss from a blowtorch, like at a high-end omakase spot. Another delicious mainstay is the Sake Don box ($28 per), with a dozen slices of both fresh and lightly-torched salmon sashimi over a bed of seasoned rice.
BONUS: You need to get there early if you want your pick of the day’s boxes — and that means at or near its opening time of 11a. Everything can be thrown in the fridge, and Lim recommends taking it out around 90 minutes before you’re ready to eat, so it can come to room temperature. On Saturday, they sell out by 1p. On a slow Tuesday and Wednesday, they might stay open as late as 2p, but don’t count on it. Also, they don’t typically take pre-orders with a notable exception of Thanksgiving week, from Nov 26-28. Get those in now, before they sell out, too. –Jay Barmann
→ Aji Kiji (Fillmore) • 1552 Fillmore St • Tues-Sat 11a until sold out.
ASK FOUND
First, a quick primer on how this works: You send us the pressing questions of the day (on dining, services, living in the Bay Area). We all put our heads together (us, FOUND, + you, FOUND subscribers, who are also FOUND) in search of truth and beauty.
Three FOUND subscriber PROMPTS for which we are seeking intel:
What toy stores are you trolling for the kids on your holiday gift list??
What Bay Area pet boarder are you using this travel season??
Where are you making your ski week reservations?
Got answers or more questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfoundsf.com.
GETAWAYS LINKS: Judge temporarily blocks Oakland Airport’s SF name appropriation • Fine dining spot Enclos set to open Dec 5 in Sonoma • Four new restaurants to mull in Mendocino • Yosemite requires reservations for firefall visits in 2025 • Shoulder season goes mainstream.
GETAWAYS • The Nines
Hotels for holiday guests
The Nines are FOUND's distilled lists of SF’s best. Additions or subtractions? Hit reply or found@itsfoundsf.com.
Hotel Drisco (Pac Heights), luxe lodging in tony neighborhood w/ Bulgari bath products and beefed-up amenities, $683